The Favor
by Lady Magnolia
Summary: Jan returns to Scranton after Casino Night and faces more of the aftermath from her relationship with Michael. Its an ensemblefic, but a bit more angsty and dramatic than the show.
1. Cigarettes

If she could have had her way, the Scranton branch would have closed after that night. She didn't care that downsizing was, for once, not absolutely imminent, she just wanted to rid herself of it. She never wanted to have to make the drive there again. Especially after the long, silent drive home she had faced.

She kept this opinion to herself though. She would be risking her job to suggest the closing to corporate. She had to keep things professional. _Professional_. Wasn't that the way she had acted toward him before? Keeping herself from ruining her career over some stupid fling. And look where that had got her. She'd dug herself into this hole.

"Just ignore it," she told herself. "You didn't really want him anyway." He was just there when she needed to escape from her role as a businesswoman, a purpose that he likely failed to understand. And now he had a real relationship in his life, someone who wasn't going to kiss him half of the time and ignore him the other.

She wasn't alone in her wish to escape from all things Scranton though. The young salesman, Jim, had seemed genuinely distraught when he had asked for a transfer to Stamford. Something deep had to be driving him away, a force greater than ambition, perhaps it was Dwight, or Michael, and in such a hurry too. When she told him he had the job, he wanted to start immediately.

She had been rational in that conversation. Telling him to spend a little longer in Scranton. Surely he needed some time to say goodbye and make living arrangements in a new city. Besides, the transfer still needed the approval of the rest of corporate, a process that was bound to take a couple of weeks. And then there was the vacation time he was taking in June. She had convinced him it would be for the best to wait until after the trip to begin his new job. Why couldn't she convince herself of matters in the same manner?

It was that very transfer that forced her to go back. There were forms to be filled out and paperwork to be filed and if she knew Michael, it would never get done in time unless she went down there and made sure of it herself. He would be foolish to let Jim leave without a fight; losing Dunder Mifflin's ninth best salesman would certainly be a blow. Someone needed to make sure that it was one he was going to take. Besides, she had to face her fear sometime. It would give her closure, with which would hopefully come sanity.

She had scheduled her visit for June 1, as close to Jim's vacation as possible with her schedule. She wanted to let things settle down before she arrived. Even though she hadn't forgotten about the casino night mess, hopefully he would have. When Pam had transferred in her call to confirm that he would be around to sign the necessary documents, his responses had been free of the crass remarks about their relationship that plagued their conversations in the past. He had slipped and called her Carol once, a mistake for which he apologized courteously, but she doubted that he knew how much it had hurt. He had reminded her of how she didn't even have a silly sales manager idolizing her anymore, she was truly alone. She'd smoked an endless chain of cigarettes after the call. Who would have thought that one simple rejection could endanger her health so much more?

Smoking was like Michael in a way. She knew that both would hurt her, but when denied them, she was driven into anguish. Maybe if she focused her energy on quitting she could forget, but it was the one thing in her life that she knew she could rely on to be there. She knew exactly where her life was with every smoke, but didn't mind. She was the executive with the lucrative career, not some airhead desperate for a relationship in the worst possible place. As much as she felt snubbed, at least she could take comfort in the fact that what she had endured was practically over. Or at least she hoped it was.


	2. The New Firm Handshake

As she stepped into the building she saw that she was far from the only person who didn't want to be there that day. Pam, the receptionist, was surveying a checklist and a diagram of what appeared to be a banquet hall, work that was hardly part of her job. She shuffled to put her wedding work away when she saw Jan coming, but all Jan could do was smile at her, despite the violation of company policy. At least someone was getting what they wanted in their love life.

She traveled further into the office and saw Jim, staring at the ground beneath his feet, with a game of solitaire on his computer screen. Once again she knew that she didn't have it in her to scold him. She couldn't help but wonder if she had caused this depression by making him stay in Scranton longer. Even Dwight, the epitome of a dedicated worker, seemed mellow, focusing over-intently on his pricing sheet for envelopes while trading firm glances with the woman in accounting. It was the one that had once called Jan a whore, a description that almost felt accurate with her fixation on a pathetic excuse for a relationship.

"Jan! Bringin a little city flava to the office today!" The hardest part of her day had arrived: facing Michael. He proceeded to greet her with a pair of kisses, one on each cheek.

Ryan was sitting in front of the camera at this time. "So after casino night, Michael decided that kisses were the new firm handshake of the paper business. He even sent in a letter to some magazine about it. They'll never print it, but he's tried it on me every day since then." Ryan's eyes were wide with terror, and he almost seemed relieved when Kelly called to him from across the office.

Jan cringed at her current situation. She had been expecting to have to face rejection, not a man who didn't realize that it was cruel to date two people at the same time. "We'll get to the paperwork in a minute. Now would you be so kind as to step into my office?" He lowered his voice for the last statement, using the suggestive tone that was usually reserved for conversations with Todd Packer. She swallowed. It was not going to be fun, but she had a job to do nonetheless.

"So, you think you can just waltz in here and take Jimmy away from us? Well missy, I just can't let that happen."

She sighed. "Michael, you can't obstruct…"

"Until you let me treat you to some screw-HR lovin." He pulled the blinds shut. Outside of Michael's office, Jim glanced at Pam, hoping to call a coffee break to discuss the implications. She never looked up from her paperwork.

"Screw-HR? Michael, what…?"

"Human Resources doesn't like office relationships. Well, actually Toby doesn't like any relationships, that's what being divorced is all about."

"Michael, I'm divorced."

"Yes, but now you're my city girl fling, just like Carol's my local delight." He winked. She cringed. It was worse than casino night, it was worse than performance review day, it was even worse than the day she'd let the whole thing start by getting drunk at Chili's.

"Can we please just complete the paperwork? This isn't right." Did he think they were in some movie, where love triangles and flings were routine and acceptable behavior? "I need a cigarette, and when I get back, you are bringing Jim in here and we are finishing this."

"But the day is still young, my sweet." The obnoxious suggestive tone was back, this time accompanied by a false Italian accent. "There is time for business later."

"No." She stormed out of the office, purposely taking the stairs instead of the elevator so she could stomp away some of the pain.

As much as she would have loved to have said yes, she knew she couldn't. As much as she disliked Carol, she could not bring herself to destroy the realtor's relationship with Michael. Of course he wouldn't know how a real romance functioned. He wasn't very familiar with any element of the real world, only what he saw on network TV. She had to be the responsible person, making sure that he didn't hurt anyone other than herself.

Michael tried to run after her, but as soon as he hit the threshold between his office and the rest of the company, he stopped. It would be bad for morale to let his employees see him acting in such a way. He had to behave normally.

"Well, would you look at that? Somebody call Tom Petty, because I am a HEARTBREAKER!" He accompanied the remark with a hip thrust that hadn't been seen since Pam had burned his favorite jeans. Only Dwight laughed, prompting the producers to beckon to him for a talking head.

"Did I know what Michael was talking about? No. But did Michael say it? So it must have been funny." The cameraman smirked, just as he had suspected.

Most of the office was silent. Jim snickered, and took another glance over at Pam. She still was studying the seating chart, and on a day that desperately needed their analysis and input. He decided it was time to approach her desk. After casino night she'd started stocking the jelly bean jar with Harry Potter jellybeans. The ones that included flavors like sardine, earwax, and grass. He'd nearly choked when he first encountered them, unable to swallow the pepper-flavored bean. Dwight had been ecstatic, but it had significantly decreased the number of visits Jim made to her desk.

"Hey," Jim said as he rummaged through the jar, looking for something that seemed normal. The silence that followed was beyond awkward. She didn't look up, and muttered to herself about whether Roy's Aunt Miriam would get along with her Uncle Robert. Jim finally settled on a normal-looking bean and left, dejected. It turned out to be lemon, but it was as hard to swallow as the pepper bean had been.

Michael looked around, struggling with the failure of his joke. "Come on! Surely somebody must have got it."

"I did," Phyllis replied meekly.

"Oh God! You people have no sense of humor!" He stormed back to his office, leaned on the windowsill, and watched Jan fumble for a pack of cigarettes. What had he done?


	3. Mud Wrestling and Tortilla Chips

"He's watching me," she said to herself as she rummaged around her vehicle. Why couldn't she find those damn cigarettes? Her purse had only yielded an empty box of Virginia Slims, some Altoids, and a bottle of Tylenol. She popped two Tylenol capsules and turned to the glove compartment. All she found was the registration for her car, a pamphlet on how to change a flat tire, and a napkin from Chili's, on which was written the contact information for the Lackawanna County offices. Frustrated, she pulled out her keys and floored it to the nearest 7-11.

He could blackmail her for this. But if he reported her to corporate for leaving in the middle of the meeting and driving off for a petty reason, he'd also have to explain why she was in such a mental state to begin with. He couldn't bring up their relationship to corporate again; it had almost ruined Jan's career the last time. Even he knew better than that, having climbed the company ranks himself. This was a strictly personal affair; so of course, he needed to inform the entire office. "Everyone in the conference room, now."

Jim sat in front of the camera. "Jan made me come back here, the receptionist won't speak to me, leaving me to look to Dwight for regular conversation, and now I may not even get to transfer because my boss is more concerned with getting some. Life is great."

"Pam, move it, I need you as much as I need everyone else. You've built a happy relationship and gotten jiggy with it and can tell me how to do the same," Michael pressured. She was sitting at her desk, refusing to yield as the rest of the employees filed into the conference room.

"Michael, I can't. I…I…I have a headache. I don't think I could handle a group environment." Especially not one that included a certain, scruffy-haired salesman.

"Come on Pam! You sound like you want to leave our family. We've already seen enough of that. Besides, it's your job to take notes at ANY office meeting, including this one."

She shoved her wedding paperwork behind some old expense reports for safekeeping and hesitantly shuffled into the conference room.

"Now, as you all know, I am in the middle of a complicated scheme of relationships. A love triangle, you may call it. And I need to win back one endpoint of this triangle."

"A vertex," Stanley quipped.

"Exactly. I need to inVERt the TEXture of this relationship. I am going to place the suggestion box on the table, and I want everyone to give me their best romantic advice in the next five minutes."

Dwight walked out of the conference room and sat at his computer. He clicked through a few files and selected a portion of a page to print.

"I have been waiting for Michael to ask me for advice for years. I have a whole list of situations prepared with responses to each of them. For a love triangle, construct a comparison chart based on factors such as salary, not that Michael needs any financial help, offspring, medical records, fertility, physiology, strength in matters of physical labor, bladder capacity, and appreciation for the brilliant person that Michael is," he read in his latest talking head.

"Okay, all advice in! Let's see what your minds have to offer. There will be a bonus mystery gift for whoever has the best advice. Can I get a drum roll please?" Only Dwight pounded on the table. "The first piece of advice, stop living such a sinful lifestyle and choose. No good, who came up with that piece of crap?"

Angela looked downward, and Dwight slipped his hand under the table to comfort her. Pam glanced quickly over at Jim, hoping to point it out to him, but looked away immediately. How pathetic of her was it to forget that things weren't like the old days anymore?

"Next we have get them to strip down and mud wrestle. Leave the loser in the mud. Sexy, but no."

Kevin launched into his trademark grin. "Mud wrestling is hot."

"Get the job done so she can go back to New York, proving to her you understand the boundaries of your relationship. Come on people! Give up on love, eenie meenie miney moe, follow office relationships protocol. Does anyone realize how serious this is? This is worse than downsizing."

The cameraman filmed Creed. "Eenie meenie miney moe is one of the greatest decision making processes ever. I use it all the time to determine whether product quality passes or fails. It does my job for me."

"This is the last suggestion in the box. Show her you care. Aww, how sweet. Who wrote this?" Oscar raised his hand. "You're a genius. It's like you have a special knowledge of relationships, like those guys on Queer Eye or something." Oscar buried his head in his hands. "I'll have the bonus to you at the end of the day. Everyone thank Oscar for actually understanding the situation. You can all get back to work, and not a word about this to Jan."

Michael strode back into his office and pulled out a pad of paper. He divided it into two columns: likes and dislikes. Under likes he had written smoking, firing people, and Michael Scott. Under dislikes he had divorce, casino night, and tortilla chips, which he'd discovered that she especially hated after ordering them as an appetizer at Chili's. So much of his knowledge of her was based on obvious attributes, the kind that he could never approach.

He was busy trying to figure out the best way to prove to here that tortilla chips were actually quite tasty when her car screeched back into the parking lot. She must've sped to get back there so quickly. When she climbed out of the vehicle, her hair was disheveled and her stockings had a large gash in them from her ankle to her knee. She was a wreck, sitting on the hood of her car with a cigarette in her hand.

Michael was shocked by what he saw. He couldn't be the reason behind her transformation from radiant businesswoman to haggard mess. He knew he had annoyed her, but surely all of this wasn't his fault. There had to be something else he could blame.

Unlike how Michael saw her, Jan felt as though a weight had been lifted from her. She may have been in a tattered disarray, but she could think again. She knew exactly how she would act when she went back inside, keeping the conversation on subjects related to Jim's transfer and ignoring anything Michael did otherwise. For the first time that day she felt like she was going to make it through another day at Scranton.

Meanwhile, Michael continued to contemplate. Suddenly he saw it, flickering by her hand, the ruinous substance. "Her kryptonite," he said to himself.

"Michael, did you want to discuss Superman? The new movie comes out shortly. I'm camping out in front of the theater on opening night, do you want to come?" Leave it to Dwight to hone in on any conversation involving comic book characters.

"No Dwight. Go away. This is a deeply personal matter."

"Is she still out there, smoking? Smoking kills. I don't know why you'd ever date a smoker. It's so bad for any future offspring. There was once a smoker in the Schrute family, Mose's sister Trudy. We threw her off the beet truck after making a shipment and have never seen her again. Those smoker's lungs could never handle the walk back."

"Exactly."


End file.
